Palafox in Pensacola teeming with street musicians

Downtown Pensacola has a sound these days. Something other than the snort of mufflers and engines moving through our bustling, vibrant city centerpiece. Something other than the zip and roar of progress and cold commerce.

Acosta A. Folk and Bodyhead of As One make the most of Monday's gorgeous weather by playing guitar for people passing by in Plaza Ferdinand park in downtown Pensacola.
Katie King/kking@pnj.com

Walk down Palafox and you'll hear them before you see them — the town's troubadours trading sidewalk serenades for nothing more than goodwill and potential pocket change. You'll see them in Plaza Ferdinand with a saxophone or guitar, or near the Saenger Theatre going to town on a banjo.

Go to the farmers market on a Saturday or Wednesday, and you'll hear their varied tunes with each step — a different song and performance every few feet, it seems.

It's the sound of urban culture — the busker, the street musician, bringing ad hoc musical art to the city streets.

It was the Fourth of July, and Mike Grillo got sidetracked on his way to the fireworks.

For 30 minutes, he cozied up to guitarist Emmanuel Cook, who was sitting on the stone border of Plaza Ferdinand on Palafox, strumming and singing songs that crossed genre and generation. There was an open cooler at Cook's feet, filled with a few dozen $1 bills and a stray $20 that passers-by had donated as they made their way by.

"You can't hide those lyin' eyes,

And your smile is a thin disguise.

I thought by now you'd realize,

There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes."

Cook sings the Eagles classic with a warmth that belies the accusatory lyrics and brings a breezy musical note to the classic downer. The lyrical dagger becomes almost optimistic in Cook's experienced hands.

Grillo, a Pensacola businessman and amateur guitarist, was transfixed. He put the $20 bill in Cook's case earlier and, for the moment, provided Cook, 62, with a rapt and dedicated audience of one.

Cook, who has played in various bands and combos throughout his decades, said folks like Grillo are the reason he sets up shop downtown with his guitar.

"I've been working with the public my whole life," Cook said. "I get to come out here and meet people."

He nodded toward Grillo.

"It's nice to be able to entertain people and have them truly appreciate it."

Grillo said that we're the ones who should show appreciation for a group of musicians bringing tuneful arts to a community in a rush.

"I get to come out here and listen to all the different styles he's been exposed to," Grillo said. "It adds a lot to my life."

The music dimmed for a bit as Grillo talked, and you could hear the not-so-musical sounds of the city roar by.

"Do you hear anything other than the mufflers and the exhaust and the carburetors?" Grillo asked, contemplating the mental impact of the buskers on him and our community. "So what's this add to my life? Everything."

The next day at the farmers market, Maurice Sorrell, 57, was playing Peter Gabriel's "Your Eyes" on an acoustic guitar in front of the 9/11 Memorial on Palafox.

A mother and daughter danced under a crape myrtle to the song, while the occasional good soul dropped a dollar in Sorrell's open guitar case.

"Thank you, darling," Sorrell said, interrupting the song briefly.

Sorrell, 57, has been playing music since he was in high school in Okinawa, Japan, and was exposed to the universal lure of music early on. Friends would bring in the latest music from the United States, Germany, France and more, saturating Sorrell's mind with music.

Now he shares his love of song with the city a few days a week. You can find him on Palafox a few days and nights a week, and at the farmers market regularly.

He's played in bands. But it's busking outside, bringing music to crowds that don't expect it but always appreciate it, that he truly enjoys.

"I have my reasons for doing it," he said. "It's to make people smile. To make them walk a little different. I don't know what you want through today."

The money is last on his list of reasons.

"It's nice to get a little exposure," he said. "But it's about the people, not the money."

They all say the same thing. Even the folks from the String Farm Band who can bring in $200 on a good day performing at the market.

On a recent day, the band was a three-piece, consisting of two guitarists and a fiddle player. The Saturday before, there were five people with the band. It's casual, folks.

The group has been performing at the market each Saturday for about three years, sending old-timey tunes like "The Long Black Veil" wafting through the market square.

A group of onlookers gathered to hear the tender harmonies and mournful song. A wide-eyed little girl in a stroller stared transfixed by the band and its sound as her father danced in cargo shorts behind her.

The gentlemen of the String Farm Band — Mark Anderson and Trey Hughes on guitars, Jerry Jackson on fiddle — have played in various acts through the years. They've been in bands in bars, played the nightclubs. But this is where they want to be at this stage in their life, bringing the music where the people are.

"It's a different agenda here," said Hughes, who is self-employed outside the musical world. "It's not about impressing girls or making money. The agenda is about making music."

Trendsetter Mack Smith — it says "trendsetter" on the banjo player's business card — has been performing on Pensacola's streets since the 1980s. He's been playing banjo since the 1950s.

And he still comes out to the market to play for the people, even though he's nearing 76 years old.

"I've got documentation," he said about the "trendsetter" boast.

He used to perform outside the Saenger Theatre beginning in the late 1980s, and also played in Pensacola's Wisteria String Band.

"I'm an ambassador for the banjo," he said. "I'm nuts about it."

He played a self-penned instrumental — "007" — while friend Larry Newburn accompanied him on guitar.

Sitting on a park bench, the two traded licks, luring onlookers with their sound and filling up Smith's open guitar case with bills and change.

"We bring a little joy to the city," Smith said of the city's buskers and street musicians. "That's what it's all about."

Growing number of street musicians are performing at Farmers Market, Palafox

Acoustafolk performs for the crowd Saturday at Palafox Market in Downtown Pensacola.(Photo: John Blackie/jblackie@pnj.com, John Blackie/jblackie@pnj.com)

PoLeon plays his banjo for the crowd Saturday at Palafox Market in Downtown Pensacola.(Photo: John Blackie/jblackie@pnj.com, John Blackie/jblackie@pnj.com)